Genesis 32:22-33:11 Jacob and Esau Children s Story JACOB AND ESAU Have any of you ever wished you had a twin brother or sister? I used to wish that so hard. I kept thinking how much fun it would be if there was always somebody just my age to play with. And where I grew up, there almost never was. But in my imagination, my twin and I would always be such good friends. We also would be so identical that nobody could tell us apart, and we would play lots of tricks on people because of that. And we would have a wonderful time, and always be together. But no matter how hard I wished, I never got a twin brother. Finally I figured out that it was too late for him to catch up with me, and I was going to have to wait to get to the next life before I could see him. So naturally, I loved stories about twins, including this one in the Bible about Jacob and Esau. They were born so close together that Jacob was holding Esau s foot when they were born. You cannot be more twins than that. Some people don t know that Jacob and Esau were identical twins, but you can tell they were because everybody in the story is always making such a big deal about how to tell them apart. But if you look really close, you can tell that Esau was a little ruddier (redder), and maybe he was just a slight bit heavier (not taller but thicker), and mostly he had more hair. Well, in real life, being twins is not always as perfect and wonderful as I made it seem in my imagination. Twins or not, brothers and sisters do not always treat each other in fair and wonderful ways. Jacob and Esau were not always good friends. Most of you have been hearing and telling this story already. So which brother is the good one? The hero is the bad guy! Can you imagine? Right in the Bible we have a story where the hero is the bad guy. He lies, he cheats, he steals and he tricks his brother out of the family fortune. Of course, his mother helped him. Sometimes even mothers forget that just because you love your children, it does not mean that wrong is right. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2016 All rights reserved. PAGE 1 OF 8
JACOB AND ESAU CHILDREN S STORY Anyway, you know what happened. Rebekah and Jacob cooked up this scheme and lied to Daddy, whose name was Isaac. So when they pretended that Jacob was Esau, their father Isaac turned all of the land and animals and workers over to Jacob. This was after the boys were already grown up into manhood. So just when Esau was supposed to be taking over the family business, he discovered that his brother Jacob had stolen it away from him. Well, Esau was pretty mad. How angry was he? Right! Angry enough to kill Jacob about thirty times right on the spot. And he had a right to be. Most of us don t like it when somebody takes something away from us that is supposed to be ours. If they do it in a sneaky, dishonest way when our backs are turned and we don t even know about it, that makes it even worse. If the person who does it is somebody important to us, somebody we thought we were supposed to be able to trust like a mother and a brother that makes it worse than terrible. So Esau was really angry. And Jacob decided it would be very smart to disappear. So he ran for his life, clear out of the country. And he didn t come back for twenty years! He was giving his brother time to cool down and get over some of his anger. A lot can happen in twenty years. Both Jacob and Esau are now married, have children, and have lots of sheep and goats and hired hands. They are each the chieftain of their own clan. And now Jacob is coming back home with all of his belongings. It is very interesting because he has not seen his brother Esau for all these twenty years. When Jacob left, Esau was ready to kill him. Maybe he still is. Only now, Jacob has grown up and he has changed. Some people grow up but it doesn t do them any good. They don t ever change. They are mean when they are little, mean when they grow up, and mean when they are old. But Jacob has changed. And he realized what a bad thing he had done to his brother, though he was not sure what to do to make it right. So Jacob thought about it a lot, for a long time. Before he crossed the Jordan River back into his own land, he prayed to God all night. He prayed so hard, thought so hard, and wanted so much to know what to do that we say he wrestled with God all night or that he wrestled with God s angel all night. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2016 All rights reserved. PAGE 2 OF 8
JACOB AND ESAU CHILDREN S STORY He thought about going away again. But he couldn t do that because God had work for him to do in his own land. He thought about fighting his brother. But he had already done his brother so much harm, he couldn t believe that was right. On the other hand, if he did not come ready to fight, maybe Esau would kill him and all the people he loved. Then he would never be able to do all the other things God was telling him to do. And all his friends and family would be dead too. It was a terrible struggle to know what to do. It made it harder because Jacob knew it was his own fault that he was in such a difficult position. He had been a really bad brother. If Esau decided to hurt or kill him, Jacob figured he pretty much deserved it. So he had to start off his prayers by admitting he was wrong and getting God s forgiveness. Sometimes life is like that for all of us. Sometimes we don t know what to do because we have been really wrong and bad. That is not a time to try to go fix it ourselves. That is a time to go talk with God. And we say, Lord, I m in a real mess, and it s my own fault. But I need Your help because I don t know what to do. I m going to stay here until You forgive me and I know it, and until You help me figure out what I should do about it. Even if it takes all night or all week or all month, I m not leaving until I know what You want me to do, and until You have promised to be with me again. That s the most important thing in the story. When you are in trouble or you have done something wrong, go someplace where you can be alone to think it over with God. And don t come out of that place until you know God loves you again, and until you know what God wants you to do next. The following day, Jacob knew what he was supposed to do, and it worked out really well for Esau and Jacob and everybody. But you know that part of the story or if you don t, you should ask your parents. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2016 All rights reserved. PAGE 3 OF 8
Genesis 32:22-33:11 Jacob and Esau Sermon WHY WRESTLE WITH GOD? I wonder if there is anybody here who has a brother or sister they have not seen for twenty years. The story of Jacob and Esau is the story of brothers estranged. Do you know what it means to be estranged? It is also a story about reconciliation. Christians, it would seem, should be more interested in reconciliation than in anything else in the whole world. Christians, we might think, would always side with and work for reconciliation, if it is genuine. Every Christian plot and theme and story is about reconciliation in some way, on some level. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself... and giving to us the ministry of reconciliation. (II Corinthians 5:19) This is one of the clearest summations we have. For the Christian, everything is always about reconciliation. Sin is alienation, separation, estrangement. Reconciliation is healing the rifts and divisions and heading back toward Life. When things split, it is destructive. The principle applies to more than atoms or families. When things split, it is destructive. We are supposed to be on the side of things coming back together. We are supposed to favor reconciliation and things staying together: harmony, cooperation, love. It isn t easy or simple, is it? The forces that work for estrangement (sin) are enormous. At first glance they always seem more powerful than the forces that work for reconciliation (love). Listen to the feel of some of the words we associate with the powers of estrangement: anger, deceit, greed, chaos, selfishness, frustration, cruelty, hatred, cheating, betrayal, jealousy, arrogance. Not very pleasant words. Their reality is far worse than their sound. I left out some of the big ones (like pride, suspicion, lust, rebellion, depression, stubbornness, domination) because I didn t want us all crying right here in public. In comparison, most of the words that work for reconciliation feel less dynamic and less powerful, at first: patience, empathy, forgiveness, kindness, gentleness, serenity, apology, humility, repentance, affection, caring. One of the big words, we don t even use anymore. It appeared frequently in the King James version of the Bible. If we tried to bring it back, I suspect it would be scorned by most everyone, and associated with mousy men and unliberated women and other such vermin. It used to be associated with the saints and with Jesus and even with God: long-suffering. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2016 All rights reserved. PAGE 4 OF 8
WHY WRESTLE WITH GOD? Which of the two lists of words most characterizes your life? That is just a more polite way of asking: Are you on Satan s side, or God s side? Would you rather be proud, or humble? Would you rather be defiant and stubborn, or gentle and long-suffering? I m not really asking you. I m just letting you in on a conversation I recently had with myself when I was thinking about Jacob coming back to meet Esau. How could I get into such a conversation? It seems obvious to me that Jacob had sufficient wealth and manpower. He could have come back into Palestine in armed might, had he chosen to do so. He could have appeared in strength and said to Esau, Look, I have the birthright and the blessing, and plenty of men by my side. Make peace and prosper, or make war and get your head beat in, but I m coming home to take over. He could have done that. It sounds sort of American, don t you think? At least Hollywood-American. Positive, realistic, honest, and effective. But Jacob did not do that. How big of a gamble was it to come in apology and reconciliation? Did he not risk getting himself and everybody he cared about butchered? And he did not have to take that risk. He could have come the other way. That interests me. ( What is that? I cannot make that out. ) This is too early for that kind of choice. This is too early in the whole human story for such issues and awareness. This is the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. We haven t even gotten to Moses, never mind Jesus or Gandhi. Where is this coming from? So it makes me wonder: Which side am I on? In a multiple-choice test with paper and pencil, I can mark love and light over hatred and death; I m no dummy. But some people have been a little mean to me lately. I probably deserve it, but I don t remember deserving it. (By the way, some folk have been really wonderful to me lately, and I don t remember deserving that either. So don t get lost in the illustration.) When people are mean or I feel them working against me, then it s no longer multiple-choice with paper and pencil. Then I really get to choose which list of words I want characterizing my life. Which side am I on: reconciliation, or estrangement? But it is not just a list of words. Sometimes there is righteousness in anger, and sometimes there is cowardice in patience. Sometimes caring and compassion seem to block or prevent the reconciliation which is their aim, and sometimes long-suffering turns into playing martyr. Then we are glad we have a God who is willing to keep talking with us, and not just a list of rules to read. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2016 All rights reserved. PAGE 5 OF 8
WHY WRESTLE WITH GOD? How did Jacob know he was supposed to come back home, anyway? And when did he learn that it wouldn t do any good to come back the same person he was when he left? The clearest thing in the story is that Jacob crosses more than a river when he walks back into Palestine. He is a new man. He is what we would call today born again. He is coming home with different goals, different methods, a different perspective, a different purpose in life. How do we know that? The story gives him a new name. That is the most dramatic way there is to say that this is a different person. Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel no longer one who trips or supplants others, but one who wrestles with God to know and do God s will. Of course, the changing has been going on all along. Jacob has been growing up, inside and out. He has been dealing with a two-faced, scheming liar named Laban his father-in-law. And in part that was God saying, Let s see how you like it when someone treats you the way you treated your brother. You like the ways of your mother? Let me send you to her brother. But the changing must culminate and come conscious at some point, or the real transformation will not take place. So Jacob is coming home. When he left twenty years ago, Esau would have gladly slit his throat. The two have not spoken to or seen each other since. Esau has had twenty years to cool down. Jacob is not at all sure that it has been long enough. And at this point in the story, some people go cynical. Isn t this simply Jacob the Schemer, having honed his scheming skills for twenty years against his father-in-law Laban? If Jacob could trade Esau pottage for birthright and cheat him out of his inheritance, doesn t Esau know that Jacob could outwit him again and buy him off with presents? Is Jacob laughing up his sleeve, saying, If I got him with pottage, I can certainly fake him out with all these flocks and herds. Except then there would not have been any new name. And there would not have been any need to wrestle with God. That scenario cannot match this story. I wonder if there is anybody here who has not seen a brother or a sister for twenty years. Maybe it is not a blood brother or sister, but someone you used to be close to. Is reconciliation ever possible? Are you on the side of reconciliation, or of estrangement? Granted, there is a lot of counterfeit and pretend reconciliation going on. Some BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2016 All rights reserved. PAGE 6 OF 8
WHY WRESTLE WITH GOD? of you would rather keep the estrangement than participate in charades. I appreciate that. God does not sacrifice integrity to forgiveness either, though few humans ever figure that out. Is Esau truly reconciled? The story is too clever for me at that point. On the one hand, Esau ran to meet him and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. The return of the prodigal brother. (It is as if Jesus pondered this story and then decided to tell one like it.) And Esau accepts the presents. That means he really is willing to be reconciled. He accepts the penance and cancels the debt. If a person will not accept your amends, they have not forgiven you. They want to keep you in their debt. On the other hand, the relationship still feels tenuous. Jacob does not want Esau around, and he does not want Esau s men around either. Maybe Jacob is just trying to be considerate. Later on, Jacob and Esau bury their father Isaac together. Before long, Esau leaves Canaan and takes all his flocks and herds and people with him to the far side of the Jordan River what we call the land of Edom. The Edomites and the Israelites usually fought each other ever afterwards. But at the time, it is simply said that the land could not support the herds of both men. Despite subsequent history, it looks to me like the reconciliation was genuine. At least Esau and Jacob never fight afterward, and as far as we know, they never harm each other in any way. Were these twins ever really close, before or after? I cannot tell, but it does not seem so. Stories are for fun. They are also for learning. What do you do if you have done someone wrong? First you go to the one you really wronged: God. Every offense is primarily an offense against God. If Jacob misbehaves, it is against God that he has acted. If that also hurts Esau, who owns Esau? So Jacob has offended God twice: once in not living up to his own sonship, and twice because he hurt another of God s children. Who can straighten out such tangled matters, except the Source and Owner of all? Why wrestle with God? Because there is no other power or source or hope of reconciliation. What can Jacob do? He must first confess and repent and do penance and get instructions from God. So he wrestles all night. What have I done? Have I truly put this kind of action behind me? Am I right again with You? And now, Lord, please! You must help me to understand how to put things BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2016 All rights reserved. PAGE 7 OF 8
WHY WRESTLE WITH GOD? right with my brother. So he wrestles through the night, this father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Had he tried to do it by himself, he would surely have done too little, or too much. Who do we meet next in the Bible who has a habit of wrestling all night in prayer? Right! The words are not quite right, but close enough: the father of the twelve disciples, who become the twelve tribes of Christendom. That sort of thing fascinates me. What we all need to remember is to wrestle with God. Even if you believe in reconciliation, that does not mean you can manage it on your own power or wisdom. Go wrestle with God first. It is your only hope. The human surprise in this story is Esau Esau s forgiveness. He is not a Christian. He is not the hero of the story. But Jacob s life and destiny, and subsequently the destiny of Israel, depend upon Esau s forgiveness. He gives it, and gives it freely. Is this not surprising, and from a surprising person? We keep forgetting who makes people, and that goodness always lurks somewhere within and that in this life, we are going to get surprised as often by goodness as we are by evil. Go think of the surprising people who have given you forgiveness when you did not expect or deserve it. My suspicion is that we have all run into some Esaus in our lives. I further suspect that if you meditate on your life for a while, you will discover that there is one Esau in particular who, by a great forgiveness, cleared your trail in a way you would never have believed or expected. Have you been grateful for that Esau lately? Finally I ask you, as I ask myself: Are you on the side of reconciliation, or of estrangement? And after you answer, remember: you can usually tell a person who lives for the Reconciler... by their limp. BRUCE VAN BLAIR 2016 All rights reserved. PAGE 8 OF 8